Viviana The Rock Star, College Savings and kids

Hey, guys. Patrick here with the American Wealth Project podcast

and just a short episode of here. First, before I start, want to thank

everybody for all the congratulations, well wishes, love, and great

vibes we've been getting. For those who don't know, my wife had

our second child on St. Patrick's Day and Viviana Helena McAndrew

came into the world, and she came early at 33 weeks and had to

spend a little more extra time in the NICU. However, she came home

and joined the rest of the family, and we are so excited about that.

She's doing great, she's healthy, Mom's doing great, she's healthy.

Only one having some trouble is Nathaniel, our two year old, who's

not quite ready or used to the idea of being a big brother yet and

sharing the fun. He's getting there, though.

Anyhow, thank you guys for all that love and reminded me about

an aspect about the Secure Act 2.0. This is the legislation that was

passed at the end of: 2022

legislation, a lot of stuff in it. You're having trouble falling asleep at

night, go ahead and Google it, start reading, and you'll be sure to

be knocked the heck out pretty quickly.

All right. Being a dad again, it reminded me about certain aspect

and I thought I'd do a short show about the 529 changes that

they made. For those of you who don't know what a 529 account

is, it's an investment account that you can open for a child.

Doesn't have to be your child. It could be for another child. So

if you're a parent, grandparent, aunt, uncle, or godmother,

godfather, whatever you might be, or just have a friend of

yours whose kid you got a lot of love for, all those folks could

contribute to this one account for this child.

And it's meant, however, for college expenses, for continuing

Education. You can actually also use it before college for private

schooling, stuff like that, but it must be used for education. So

whatever you put in there, whatever it grows to, there's tax

benefits. As long as you use it for education, its tax free. Great

account for those who want to do that.

However, a drawback of it has been that if your son or

daughter decides to not go to college for whatever reason, say

they want to join the military like I did, or they want to start their

own business or they want to be a rock star. Whatever it might be,

they won't be able to use this account, and you lose those tax

benefits. So that's a challenge and some folks did not like that part

about it.

Well the Secure Act 2.0 will solve some of that and makes it a

little bit easier to think about this being an option if that was one

of your hangups. Starting in: 2024

does one of those things, one of those things not being going to

college well, you can do is you can roll those funds over into a Roth

IRA for your child.

So think about it. Your child's in their mid-twenties at this point,

maybe it's clear they are not going to college and you need to do

something with this account. You can roll this over into a Roth IRA.

You don't lose any of those tax benefits. And now this is going to

be in the market, being invested, doing what it's doing for several

decades. And this could be a great addition to your child's

retirement many years down the road.

Pretty cool. Adds some options to those of you who are

hesitant about using the 529 for college because the things I

mentioned. Now there's more to it. It's not that simple, but

that's the highlights. If you got questions around it, want to

talk about it, feel free to reach out either by email, text me,

call me, whatever you got to do.

Thank you guys, again for the well wishes for Viviana. I got to

get back to her. I'm sure her mom could use help right now.

Anyway, have a great rest of the week. Much love, more to

follow.